Better than Go
by AoiGensou
Summary: Hikaru knew that Touya would agree with him, that there wasn't anything that was better than Go.


Hikaru knew that Touya would agree with him, that there wasn't anything that was better than Go. A few things came close, though, in his opinion.

Picking up the new copy of Shounen Jump to see that his favorite manga had extra color pages definitely wasn't better than Go, but it was pretty good. Especially when it was a chapter with a lot of action, but not too much. He liked to see fights and explosions in his manga, but as he got older, he found himself wanting to see where the stories went, as well.

When the newest installment of his favorite video game came out, Hikaru was excited. His Go studies suffered a little, but not enough that anyone would notice anything. In the middle of the game, he ended up abandoning it, because he missed the hours he spent replaying games he'd had with Sai on the goban in his room. The old playstation had more dust on it than his goban ever had, but he'd felt like he was cheating on Sai by not studying. Games were definitely not better than Go, not any more.

Sometimes, Hikaru went out running. Being a Go player meant that he was sitting a lot of the time. Even though he walked everywhere he went, he still had a lot of pent up energy that he had to expend somehow, otherwise he got antsy and irritable. The first twelve years of his life had been quite active, and making the switch to a more sedate lifestyle had been a little tough on him. He liked how he felt after he'd been running; tired, a little giddy, and completely relaxed. Running wasn't better than Go, but it was pretty close.

Going to Akari's high school to play shidougo with the club she had formed was technically Go-related. But half the time it was just a bunch of kids who liked the same game hanging out. Sometimes they played, sometimes they didn't. Hikaru liked having a chance to hang out with kids his own age and not have the conversation derail into the latest matchups in the Honinbo tournament.

Hanging out with Waya didn't count, since Waya practically ate drank and breathed Go. (Hikaru thought he would marry Go if it were a possibility, except he had a pretty good idea that Waya had a huge crush on Morishita-sensei's daughter. Or Isumi. Some days he couldn't tell, and he really didn't want to ask. Getting involved in something like that had the potential to get messy, and Hikaru didn't need to be in the middle of some middle-school "do you like me check one yes no" fumblings at romance)

Touya didn't count, because... he was Touya. Touya was obviously synonymous with Go.

Except for the times he wasn't, of course.

"Hey Touya," Hikaru had asked one day while they played a game in Touya's bedroom. His rival's parents were away in China, and neither had felt like playing in public that day. It wasn't often that they got to actually play alone, they were nearly always surrounded by people. It was a little intimate being able to play without the murmur of other voices around them, or the echo of Go stones being placed on other boards.

"Hmmm?" Touya had asked idly as he surveyed the board, waiting for Hikaru to take his turn.

"Is it okay if I call you Akira?" Hikaru didn't know why, but he felt like calling his eternal rival was too formal. He figured if they were going to be playing Go together for the rest of their lives, then they may as well be on a first name basis.

Akira's eyes slid from the board to Hikaru's face, and Hikaru felt himself coloring slightly at the scrutiny. "I... suppose that would be acceptable."

"Okay, awesome." Hikaru let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, and flashed a grin at Touya- no, Akira.

"What brought that on?" Akira asked, his voice sounding force, overly-bright.

"What brought what on?" Hikaru asked, placing a stone then stretching his arms above his head.

"Asking if you could call me by my name."

"Oh, I just thought that it would be nice to be a little less formal with each other. I mean we spend a lot of time together these days, right? We're... friends?" Hikaru's eyes widened a little at the questioning tone in his own voice. He considered them friends, but what if it was just him?

"Yes," Akira answered after a long pause. "Yes, we're friends." His voice held a note of wonder, as if he hadn't realized it until that very moment. "But, well..." He trailed off, then shook his head. "Never mind." Placing a stone, he clamped his lips shut and stared at the board.

Hikaru knew better than to question him at moments like those. They had been coming more and more frequently recently, and nothing he said would make his rival-turned-friend talk when he held himself in such a rigid posture. With a heavy sigh, he made a move and the game continued.

Exactly fifteen hands later, on Akira's turn, Hikaru's rival's hand stopped over the board mid-move. Hikaru glanced at Akira's face curiously, his eyebrows raising at the redness he found there.

"I think I'm in love with you," Akira blurted out, the stone held between his fingers slipping from his grasp to clatter onto the board, pushing four stones from their places. His hand was trembling, the same tremble that Hikaru could remember so clearly from the time they played each other in the middle school Go tournament, but from a different reason.

Hikaru's head went blank, and all he could manage was a faint, "Oh." Rolling the thought around his head, the fact that his rival-turned-friend was confessing to him seemed like something out of a shoujo manga, and not something that happened in real life. He wondered if he was dreaming, and he would wake up in his bed when his alarm went off.

No waking happened, though, and the warmth that spread through him as the knowledge sunk in didn't surprise him as much as he thought it would. He was _happy _that his rival liked him as more than a friend. he couldn't think of anyone else that he would want to confess to him like this.

(He could think of other people that _might_, but even just the thought of it was awkward to him, whereas this was just... nice.)

"Oh," he repeated again, glancing up from his hands where his gaze had rested as he sorted out his feelings to find Akira staring at him trepeditiously. He was glad his rival hadn't run away when he hadn't received an answer immediately. He had to give it to Akira, when he decided to do something, he saw it through to the end. Taking a deep breath, Hikaru offered him a smile.

"I think I've loved you this whole time. Is that weird?"

Blinking, Akira stared at him for a few seconds, before shaking his head. His long hair brushed over his red cheeks, and Hikaru wanted to reach over and move it out of the way, to feel the individual strands and test their softness between his fingertips.

"What? Weird? Why would that be any weirder than me confessing to you?"

"Oh, okay then. Just checking."

"Shindou, you are so-"

"You can call me Hikaru, you know. Since you said I could call you Akira and all," Hikaru interrupted, his own cheeks giving in to the urge to blush. "It's only fair, right?"

"Hikaru..." Akira sounded as though he was testing the name on his tongue, as if savoring a fine wine. "Hikaru."

"Yeah?" The blush didn't diminish, but it was accompanied by a goofy grin.

"Nothing. I just... this is kind of surreal."

"Yeah. But I like it." Allowing himself a moment of sentimentality, Hikaru reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind Akira's ear. His hair was just as soft as he thought it would be, and he could see that the blush had definitely reached the tips of his rival's (no, friend's) (no, lover's... but perhaps that was rushing things a bit) ears.

Hikaru knew Touya - Akira - would agree with him that there was nothing better than Go. And he hoped that he would also agree that this came pretty damn close.


End file.
